


Champagne

by TheGoodDoctor



Series: Group Targets [30]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-27 23:50:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8422462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGoodDoctor/pseuds/TheGoodDoctor
Summary: James looks altogether too smug.While not uncommon, this event is always cause for concern; the number of times that a smug Bond has, in some way, come back to bite the crew is concerningly immeasurable.





	

James looks altogether too smug.

While not uncommon, this event is always cause for concern; the number of times that a smug Bond has, in some way, come back to bite the crew is concerningly immeasurable.

Q folds his arms and frowns at him. “What have you broken now?”

James grins. “Nothing.”

His foot starts tapping. “Stolen?”

“I would never.”

“Apart from on Belarion IV, Kelema II, TX7 -” Bill says in passing, hidden behind large crates of gear.

“Yes, alright,” James says, half-annoyed, half-proud. “Apart from those three times.”

“Oh, I'm not done,” Bill says happily. “I could go on.”

“Please don't,” Eve says, following him with the flight plans. “No one has enough time.”

James makes a move to dart past Q in his distraction but, at his glare, switches the lurch into a hug. “Just pleased to see you, darling,” he grins hopefully.

Q glares up at him and prods his chest. “I am including smuggling in the stealing bracket, Mr Bond.”

James curses. “Surely my favourite android would know that those two things are entirely different,” he whines. “It was a transaction. I paid for it. Not stealing.”

“Just not paying all of the price,” Q sighs. “I suppose it's the kind of quality item which you can't just go and pay for?”

James thinks. “I can,” he says slowly, “I'd just pay with about seven years on this moon’s penal colony.”

Q closes his eyes. “I'm going to delete that from my memory banks for plausible deniability, so look very bloody innocent, alright?”

James kisses his cold forehead with a grin. “Come on, short circuits, let's board her.”

They climb the rickety boarding ramp into the gloomy underbelly of the ship and Q ignores James as he stashes something somewhere in the shadows near the loading bay. The captain looks up when he hears their footsteps. “Hullo, chaps. Nearly ready?”

Q nods. “Sir. I'll check the engines ready for take off.”

Gareth nods. “Sounds good. James, don't think I can't see you over there. Put it in your bunk, for Nova’s sake; they need a warrant for in there.”

James sends the tall, gilled alien a jaunty salute and trots off down the corridor. Gareth wanders up to the bridge and settles in his seat. “Eve, how are we looking?”

“Cleared and ready for take off, sir,” the pilot says brightly. “As soon as everyone on board is set, we can head out.”

Bill appears through a hatch in the floor and Eve starts. “Boo,” the empath laughs. “James is in his seat and Q is, at least, locked in a small engine room with his head in a machine, so even if there is much turbulence he can't do too much damage.”

“I suppose we can do no better,” Gareth says.

“Just take care when opening doors, as androids may have shifted during flight,” Bill says, clambering out of the trapdoor and buckling himself into a seat near Eve.

* * *

“Whatever it was you nicked, James, _it wasn't bloody worth it_.”

“I didn't steal it!” James says, crackly over the intercom from down in the gun turret. “I bought it. The person I bought it from stole it.”

“That does not make me feel better,” Gareth say warningly. “Start saying things like _they don't seem to mind anymore_ , or _I've jettisoned the damn thing, we're safe_.”

“I'm not getting rid of it! It's clearly important.”

“James, we'll get rid of you in a minute,” Bill says, clinging to the shuddering control panel and looking distinctly green. “Q, any bright ideas?”

“Uh,” Q says through the ship's computer, echoing despite the noise of various lasers attempting to wreak general destruction, and the ship being generally destroyed. “Well, they aren't responding to hails. We could keep shooting at them?”

“Sun Tzu, eat your heart out,” Bill says, flinching as a fragment of metal attempts to shear his ear off.

“If we can evade until we hit KLM-256,” Eve says, glaring at her navigation screen, “we can hit the neutral zone.”

“That sounds like a big if,” Gareth says.

“But a solution! Everything will be fine and you can stop being mad at me,” James says hopefully.

“To that problem,” Q says. “I doubt the Federation are going to be very happy with us.”

“I thought the Federation didn't like the people shooting at us,” James says.

“The Federation don't like anybody very much,” Bill sighs. “Take it from me.”

“Humans,” Eve sighs.

“Hey!” James says. “That's xenophobic.”

“Yeah, sure, when you've been repressed and attacked since humans figured out space travel, you can complain, okay?” Eve snaps. “Also, you can never complain about anything ever again after this.”

Gareth sighs. “I should have known you'd be trouble when I hired you.”

“You didn't,” Bill points out as they swerve away from an asteroid. “He stowed away and we can't get rid of him.”

“That should have been the first clue,” Gareth says as they shoot into the neutral zone and their pursuers peel away.

“See? Everything is fine. Good job guys. Champagne all round and buns for tea,” James cheers. “Why are we stopping?”

“Tractor beam,” Q says sadly. “Federation issue.”

“I told you,” Eve says, slumping in her seat.

Bill gulps. “I can feel from over here just how not pleased they are.”

“Turn off your engine and comply,” a mechanized voice barks from their speakers.

“James, I'm going to throw you out of an airlock at the first opportunity with which I am blessed,” Gareth says murderously.

“...so that's a no to the champagne,” James says quietly.


End file.
